The Trussell Trust charity are setting up food banks in Glasgow and Edinburgh to add to their centres in Inverness and Dundee. They believe 60,000 Scots will eventually need their help.

Thousands of Scots are to get food handouts because they can no longer make ends meet.

Jobcentres have been told to send desperate families to charity food banks.

Benefit cuts, unemployment and rising living costs mean an increasing number of Scots can't afford to put food on the table.

The Trussell Trust charity are setting up food banks in Glasgow and Edinburgh to add to their centres in Inverness and Dundee. They believe 60,000 Scots will eventually need their help.

Margaret Curran, Labour's Glasgow East MP, said: "It is a badge of shame that people still rely on charity to eat in the 21st century."

Audrey Flannagan is fronting the charity's Glasgow operation, which will be based in Govanhill and should be open by mid-November. She said: "It's shocking that this is happening and we have to help people in this way.

"Many people we deal with are very proud and find it difficult approaching us."

John Ross, minister at Burdiehouse Community Church in Edinburgh, is also setting up a food bank. He said: "Like any new scheme, it will probably start slowly and then build up."

The Trussell Trust's food bank in Dundee has fed 4400 men women and kids in almost 1500 households in the last year.

Last week, the UK Government gave the go-ahead to Jobcentres to send needy families to the trust.

The charity's food bank network manager Jeremy Ravn said: "We forecast we will feed up to 100,000 this financial year across the UK.

Under the scheme, people whose benefits have been delayed, or have been refused crisis loans, will be referred to their local food bank.

They will get basic food like soup, baked beans, pasta and teabags to tide them over.

CASE STUDY THE GODDARD FAMILY

MUM-OF-NINE Lisa Goddard turned to the Trussell Trust when she couldn’t feed her children.

The 41-year-old struggles to get by because her benefits have been cut and her rates have increased.

She can’t find work, so she relies on her weekly Giro cheque to survive.

Lisa finds it especially difficult to make ends meet in the winter months, when her electricity bills go through the roof.

She lives in a four-bedroom council house in Whitfield, Dundee, with seven children, her partner Mick Jones and the 21-year-old daughter of a former friend.

Lisa explained how she often buys products from the local shop on credit and is constantly battling to get food on the table.

She said: “It’s horrible. I’m a proud woman and the first thing I do when the benefits arrive is pay what I owe to the shopkeeper.

“The next thing is always to pay the electricity, especially now it’s getting cold.

“But the bills are going up and it’s getting harder and harder.”

Four months ago, she was forced to accept food parcels fromthe Trussell Trust after a clericalerror meant her benefits stopped temporarily.

She added: “We had nowhere else to turn to – it was thatfood or nothing.”

Lisa’s 17-year-old son has just finished a college course and would have received benefits if he had not returned home.

She said: “If my son had stayed away, he would have been eligible for no-fixed-abode allowance of about £100 per fortnight.

“But because I wanted him under my roof, he won’t get that. He’s looking for work and hates to be unemployed but it would make more financial sense for us to kick him out so he can get money.”

Lisa’s sons aged 13 and nine and her daughters, who are 11, seven and six, share her house with Staci Smith and her five-year-old son.

She took Staci in when the 21-year-old fell out with her mother.

Staci receives income support of £92 a fortnight and hands over £60 to Lisa.

Lisa is already thinking about Christmas and her kids’ birthdays, which all fall in the first three months of the year.

She has started to look for cheap presents and gifts and is slowly building a stockpile.

Despite her family’s hardship, she has remained very positive.

She added: “We’re in pretty bad shape but not as bad as some.

“We all look out for each other and there’s a lot of laughs in the house.

“The living room doubles up as my eldest daughter’s bedroom, which can cause problems but we get by.

“We do our best with what we’ve got. It’s the only way to survive. It’s also reassuring to know that if it all gets too much, there are organisations like the Trussell Trust out there.”